Broomsticks, Bath and Brixton

It has surely been a busy month. And one of my friends always tells me that that's the paradox of any sort of journaling: The more there is the write about, the less time you have to write it. Now that I have slightly less than 3 weeks left in London (wow, this semester has flown), I'm going to try to catch up on these things. I'm going to do them in little sections, so maybe I can get all caught up before I get home. Because it's already late tonight, and because I've had a busy weekend, this one will be particularly short.

The day after St. Patty's Day, it seems the Fates were against my going out of the house at all. I made several plans to do several things, all of which fell through. When I finally decided I needed to get out of the house and do something, it was the exact moment it decided to start hailing. So I gave up for that day.

Two days later I went to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria. I decided that I should just go before I run out of time, so I went after work and got a student standby ticket at the door about half an hour before it started. I really enjoyed it all in all, but I can't say it's one of my very favorite musicals. It was a lot of fun, especially with the whole backstory of Oz and all the stage effects.

That Saturday I spent with Amanda in Brixton, which is a town south of London, at the end of the Victoria Tube line. There's a great market on Electric Avenue (yes, like the song) which has mostly food -- alot of meat and fish. We ate breakfast in a cute Portugese restaurant and then wandered the market stalls and shops for a while, buying jewelry and some clothing. We found this adorable cafe called Rosie's for lunch, where I got a Morrocan lamb wrap and some salad and tried ginger beer. It's just like ginger ale, only the ginger taste is much stronger; I really enjoyed it.

This was the week of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which was taking place all over London, and there were a couple of films showing in Brixton that we were interested in. They were sold out when we got there, but we got our names on a waiting list and jut barely made it into the shows. The first one we saw was about on of the most outspoken woman politicians in Afghanistan, and the second was about student revolution movements in Belarus. Both were incredibly moving, and we were really glad we got the chance to go.

On Sunday we went on a daytrip to Bath, which is west of London. It's been a resort city for the past couple of centuries, and Jane Austen spent a lot of time there and set some of her novels there. The baths were begun long before Roman times, but they were expanded by the Romans into an intricate system of pipes and rooms, most of which still exist today. It was a cute little town, but I think we even more enjoyed the drive through the countryside getting there. All of the buildings in Bath are made with bath limestone, so every single building is this honey-gold color, and it contributes to the resort feeling of the town.

After Bath we got back on the bus and went to Avebury, which is a tiny (tiny, tiny) village near Marlborough. Avebury is known for it's stone circle (think Stonehenge), which encircles the entire village and is one of the largest in Britain. The stones were huge, and they made a very nice park of sorts for the village.

After this weekend the next two weeks went almost in a whirlwind, but you'll have to wait for those stories. I made another QuikMap, this time showing all the places I've visited on the island. I know it says "English Excursions," but it includes my Scotland and Wales trips as well. Like the last map, you can zoom in and out, drag the view around and click on the little pushpins for more information. Cheers!